Tutorial: Cross-compilation for UWP from Windows host with Visual C++ 2019 (vc16)

Table of Contents

• Install prerequisites
  • Visual Studio
  • CMake
  • Git
• Create a workspace
• Get ViSP source code
• Build ViSP
  • Build for Windows Store 10.0
    • Targeting a x86 platform
    • Targeting a x64 platform
    • Targeting an ARM platform
• Tips and tricks
  • How to add Universal Windows App Development Tools support

In this tutorial you will learn how to build ViSP framework for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to include ViSP functionalities in apps developments that target a wide range of devices including PC, mobile, Xbox, HoloLens, IoT, and Surface Hub.

This tutorial has been tested on Windows 10 (64 bit), with CMake 3.14.3 and Visual Studio Community 2019.

Note

Concerning ViSP installation, we provide also other Tutorials.

Install prerequisites

Visual Studio

Visual Studio Community 2019 could be downloaded from https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/. During a fresh installation enable "Universal Windows App Development Tools". Without this workload, you won't be able to create your universal apps. After a fresh installation, start Visual Studio and create an empty C++ project to install the common tools for Visual C++ 2019.

If you already have Visual Studio Community 2019, you can check if "Universal Windows App Development" workload is activated following instructions given here that we resume:

1. Find the Visual Studio Installer on your computer. Select Start, and then scroll to the letter V, where it's listed as Visual Studio Installer
2. Click or tap to start the installer, and then choose "Modify"
3. From the Workloads screen, check if "Universal Windows App Development" workload is activated like in the following image
   
4. Choose Modify again.
5. After the new workloads and components are installed, choose Launch.

After Visual Studio installation, you need to enable your Windows 10 device for development.

CMake

CMake could be download from http://www.cmake.org. Download the latest release for Windows win64-x64 platform (at the time this tutorial was written it was the file cmake-3.14.3-win64-x64.msi). To install just double click on the msi file.

Git

Install Git for Windows from https://git-for-windows.github.io/. This installation allows then to use git in a cmd Command Prompt.

Create a workspace

If not already done, create a workspace that will contain all ViSP source, build, data set and optional 3rd parties. This workspace is here set to C:\visp-ws folder, but it could be set to any other location.

To create the workspace, open a cmd Command Prompt (a fast way to launch this window is to press the Win + R keys on your keyboard. Then, type cmd or cmd.exe and press Enter or click/tap OK) and run the following to create a workspace environment var named VISP_WS:

C:\> setx VISP_WS "C:\visp-ws"
C:\> exit

Open a new cmd Command Prompt and create the corresponding folder

C:\> mkdir %VISP_WS%
C:\> exit

Get ViSP source code

There are different ways to get ViSP source code.

• You can download the latest release as a zip or a tarball. Once visp-x.y.z.tar.gz or visp-x.y.z.zip is downloaded, uncompress the file in %VISP_WS%\visp\visp-x.y.z using for example WinRAR.
• You can also download a daily snapshot. Once visp-snapshot-yyyy-mm-dd.tar.gz is downloaded, uncompress the file in %VISP_WS%\visp\visp-x.y.z using for example WinRAR.
• Or you get the cutting-edge ViSP from GitHub repository using the git command line tool:

  C:\> cd %VISP_WS%
  C:\> git clone https://github.com/lagadic/visp.git
  

We suppose now that ViSP source is in %VISP_WS%\visp.

Build ViSP

Build for Windows Store 10.0

Targeting a x86 platform

With CMake configure ViSP specifying options for cross compiling for "Windows Store" operating system in version "10" targeting a "x86" platform, by opening a cmd Command Prompt and running:

C:\> mkdir %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-x86
C:\> cd %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-x86
C:\> cmake.exe -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A "Win32" -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME="WindowsStore" -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION="10.0" -DBUILD_DEMOS=OFF -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF -DBUILD_TESTS=OFF -DBUILD_TUTORIALS=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=%VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-install ..\visp
C:\> cmake --build . --config Release --target install

If everything goes right you will find ViSP libraries and headers in %VISP_WS%/visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-install folder. Libraries are located in x86/vc16/bin subfolder and headers in include subfolder.

Note

An other way to build ViSP is to use Visual Studio.

• To this end open File Explorer, navigate to %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-x86 folder and just double click on VISP.sln solution file. This action will open ViSP solution in Visual Studio C++.
• With Visual Studio to build and install the solution, select first "Release" configuration and build "INSTALL" project. To this end, in Visual Studio right panel apply a left click on "INSTALL" to select the project, then a right click to enter in the "Build" menu.
  

Targeting a x64 platform

The same process could be applied except that during cmake configuration you have to use "Visual Studio 16 2019 Win64" generator. Installation folder is the same to ensure a unique installation folder for all the targeted platforms:

C:\> mkdir %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-x64
C:\> cd %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-x64
C:\> cmake.exe -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A "x64" -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME="WindowsStore" -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION="10.0" -DBUILD_DEMOS=OFF -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF -DBUILD_TESTS=OFF -DBUILD_TUTORIALS=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=%VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-install ..\visp
C:\> cmake --build . --config Release --target install

If everything goes right you will find ViSP libraries and headers in %VISP_WS%/visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-install folder. Libraries are located in x64/vc16/bin subfolder and headers in include subfolder.

Targeting an ARM platform

The same process could be applied except that during cmake configuration you have to use "Visual Studio 16 2019 ARM" generator. Installation folder is the same to ensure a unique installation folder for all the targeted platforms:

C:\> mkdir %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-arm
C:\> cd %VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-arm
C:\> cmake.exe -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A "ARM" -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME="WindowsStore" -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION="10.0" -DBUILD_DEMOS=OFF -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF -DBUILD_TESTS=OFF -DBUILD_TUTORIALS=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=%VISP_WS%\visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-install ..\visp
C:\> cmake --build . --config Release --target install

If everything goes right you will find ViSP libraries and headers in %VISP_WS%/visp-build-vc16-uwp-ws-10-install folder. Libraries are located in ARM/vc16/bin subfolder and headers in include subfolder.

Tips and tricks

How to add Universal Windows App Development Tools support

In case you're trying to build Windows Store and Windows Phone 10.0 projects having only default Visual Studio 2019 installation you'll likely get the following error during cmake run:

A Windows Store component with CMake requires both the Windows Desktop SDK
as well as the Windows Store '10.0' SDK. Please make sure that you have
both installed

Follow Visual Studio installation instructions to activate "Universal Windows App Development" workload in order to resolve this issue.